Raman and Surface-Enhanced Raman for Military Applications

As world affairs have raised an alarm in our collective consciousness concerning weapons of mass destruction [1], the need for faster more reliable detection systems is greater now than ever before. As part of the Laser Standoff Detection Branch at the Edgewood Chemical Biological Center (ECBC) at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland, our task over the past quarter of a century has been to do just that. Specifically, our team has focused efforts on pushing Raman and more recently surface-enhanced Raman (SER) to the forefront of military research and potential future theater applications.